Illinois
We live in a planned community— lots of houses on postage stamps of land clustered together with a community mail room, highly convenient for the postman in our high density-hood. Despite what it sounds like, it’ s a nice place to live and the type of place where my kids ride their bikes, play football, swim all day and when they come in for dinner, it’ s usually with a few-friends in-tow.
We just don’ t have any land; no one around us does. Even the largest homes in our part of town sit on less than an acre.
Garden of Life Goes On The Road
That’ s why I was thrilled to take my wife, three boys( ages 11, nine and seven) and my daughter( also seven; yes, they’ re twins) with me when I visited our farmers in Illinois who’ ve been growing massive amounts of organic kale and spinach for our new proteins. They invited me out to film the final harvest of the season— organic kale— in late October.
We arrived at the farm with temperatures around 50 and windy, which is cold for South Floridians. We looked like snow-people with our parkas and gloves. Our friends – the Van Drunen family who owns this farm – chuckled.
Three generations of Van Drunen family farmers greeted us. Eighty-two-year-old Ed Van Drunen told us how he took over his father’ s farm when they grew chives and other greens to bring into Chicago by horse, on market days. Market by Jeff Brams
shoppers requested new and different greens, and Ed grew them, so the farm kept adding acres.
Ed’ s son, Jeff Van Drunen, has an advanced science degree, but he’ s dedicated his entire career to the family-farming business. Jeff is a mechanical genius, always seeking ways to improve. Early on, Jeff explored innovative ways to lock-in the nutrition from freshly harvested vegetables and fruits through flash-freezing immediately after harvest, drum-drying and juicing.
Jeff’ s son, David, has worked on the family farm throughout college, starting in the“ weeding” division and working his way through planting and harvesting. My kids went crazy for David.
Our family“ gets” their family— their shared commitment to passing along their heritage, values and work ethic.
David, Ed and Jeff take to the field